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Article published In: Languages in Contrast
Vol. 25:2 (2025) ► pp.263–288

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Constraints and lexical conditioning in the dative alternation

A cross-linguistic analysis of English and Dutch

ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven, Belgium
ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven, Belgium
ORCiD logo with link | Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven, Belgium
ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven, Belgium
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with KU Leuven.

Published online: 20 September 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.00052.eng
Abstract
This article presents a cross-linguistic variationist study of the dative alternations in English (I gave Tom a present vs. I gave a present to Tom) and Dutch (Ik gaf Tom een cadeau vs. Ik gaf een cadeau aan Tom). We use logistic mixed-effects regression and lasso regression to assess the probabilistic conditioning of dative choices as a function of morphosyntactic, semantico-pragmatic and lexical constraints in both languages. In addition, we test the predictive accuracy of our two language-specific models cross-linguistically. The results show a substantial overlap in the probabilistic constraints, but also a larger reliance on lexical content in Dutch compared to English, which suggests differences in complexity across the English and Dutch dative alternations. The methodology adopted in this study may pave a new way for comparative variational linguistics.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies
  • 3.Data and methods
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Choice context
    • 3.3Explanatory factors
      • 3.3.1Animacy
      • 3.3.2Pronominality
      • 3.3.3Definiteness
      • 3.3.4Givenness
      • 3.3.5Length
      • 3.3.6Complexity
      • 3.3.7Verb sense
      • 3.3.8Lemma
      • 3.3.9Writer identity
    • 3.4Analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Logistic mixed-effects regression modeling
    • 4.2Regularized (lasso) regression
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Which factors are involved in dative choice in both English and Dutch? To what extent are their effect sizes and effect directions comparable cross-linguistically?
    • 5.2How accurately can a model based on English data predict dative variability in Dutch and vice versa?
    • 5.3How important is lexical conditioning in the two languages? To what extent is the lexical conditioning cross-linguistically similar?
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Author Contribution Statement
  • Notes
  • References
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